The present invention relates generally to interface devices for allowing humans to interface with computer systems, and more particularly to computer interface devices that allow the user to provide input to computer systems and provide force feedback to the user.
Computer systems are used extensively in many different industries to implement computer controlled applications and tasks, and are also very popular with the mass market of home consumers. A computer system typically displays a visual environment to a user on a display screen or other visual output device. Users can interact with the displayed environment to perform functions and tasks on the computer, such as playing a game, experiencing a simulation or virtual reality environment, using a computer aided design system, operating a graphical user interface (GUI), performing file manipulation, or otherwise influencing events or images depicted on the screen. Such user interaction can be implemented through the use of a human-computer interface device, such as a joystick, mouse, trackball, stylus, tablet, pressure-sensitive ball, or the like, that is connected to the computer system controlling the displayed environment. Typically, the computer updates the environment in response to the user""s manipulation of a user-manipulatable physical object such as a joystick or mouse, and provides feedback to the user utilizing the display screen and, typically, audio speakers. The computer senses the user""s manipulation of the object through sensors provided on the interface device.
In some interface devices, tactile and/or haptic feedback is also provided to the user, more generally known as xe2x80x9cforce feedback.xe2x80x9d These types of interface devices can provide physical sensations to the user manipulating a user manipulable object of the interface device. For example, the Force-FX controller from CH Products, Inc. and Immersion Corporation may be connected to a computer and provides forces to a user of the controller. Typically, motors or other actuators are coupled to the user object and are connected to the controlling computer system. The computer system can provide forces on the object in conjunction with application program events by sending control signals to the actuators. The computer system can thus convey physical force sensations to the user in conjunction with other supplied feedback as the user is grasping or contacting the object of the interface device.
In most of the prior art force feedback interface devices, the host computer directly controls forces output by the actuators of the interface device, i.e., a host computer closes a control loop around the system to generate sensations and maintain stability through direct host control. FIG. 1 illustrates a block diagram of a control system 10 having a typical host controlled loop architecture. A user manipulated object 12, such as a joystick, of an interface device 13 is moved by a user to interface with a host computer 14 having a host CPU (or microprocessor) 16, memory 17, a display device 18, and I/O circuitry 19. Sensors 20 detect the position of the user object in provided degrees of freedom and buttons or other controls may also be provided to detect user actions. The sensor data including position data is sent to host computer 14 over a bi-directional communication bus 21 that is typically connected to an interface card 22 plugged into the host computer. To complete the control loop, host computer 14 sends force commands over bus 20 to actuators 24, and the actuators output forces to the user via user object 12.
The configuration of FIG. 1 has disadvantages in the inexpensive mass market, since the functions of reading sensor data and outputting force values to actuators 24 can be a computational burden on the host processor which detracts from the performance of the host in other host tasks and application program execution. In addition, low bandwidth interfaces 22 are often used in mass market computer systems, which reduces the ability of the host computer to control realistic forces requiring high frequency signals.
Some prior art force feedback devices employ a more sophisticated computational architecture having a dedicated microprocessor local to the interface device that communicates with the host computer through a high-level command language. As shown in FIG. 2, a local microprocessor 26 reads sensors and control actuators in response to commands from the host computer. The local microprocessor reports data and creates force feedback sensations as a result of parsing host commands. Such an architecture is disclosed, for example, in issued U.S. Pat. No. 5,576,727, and is used in the abovementioned Force-FX joystick from CH Products and Immersion Corp. The advantage of this architecture is that the local microprocessor can reduce the computational burden on the host computer associated with generating force feedback sensations. This is particularly important for xe2x80x9cclosed loopxe2x80x9d force feedback sensations such as simulated springs, dampers, and inertias which are generated as a function of motion of the user manipulatable object as reported by the sensors. These xe2x80x9cclosed loopxe2x80x9d sensations, referred to herein as xe2x80x9ccondition forcesxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9cconditionsxe2x80x9d are computationally intensive because sensors must be read and actuators must be controlled in a very rapid control loop. Such a loop of reading sensors, performing computations on sensor data, and controlling actuators must be performed on the order of 1000 times per second to achieve high fidelity force feedback functionality. Having a local microprocessor perform these closed loop condition forces in response to high level commands from the host computer allows the host application to maintain control over the sensations without being burdened with actually performing the rapid control loops. This enables the use of force feedback with host applications such that the performance of the host application is not significantly degraded when implementing force feedback functionality.
While the above dual-processor architecture is a significant improvement over traditional force feedback architectures, cost constraints on the local microprocessor limit the speed/performance of that processor and thus limit the fidelity of local xe2x80x9cclosed loopxe2x80x9d force sensations. There is a need to develop low-cost methods of reducing the computational burden of the local microprocessor associated with high-fidelity closed loop xe2x80x9cconditionsxe2x80x9d such as springs, dampers, and inertias. This is because low-cost local microprocessors lack the processing speed to perform the force feedback computations of closed-loop conditions while at the same time perform other tasks such as controlling communication with the host computer, decoding commands, reporting sensor data, and creating xe2x80x9copen loopxe2x80x9d force feedback xe2x80x9ceffects,xe2x80x9d such as jolts, vibrations, etc. The local microprocessor, however, must be kept low-cost and simple to manufacture for mass market force feedback interface devices so that the interface device is competitively priced in the high volume, aggressive home computer and home video game markets.
The present invention is directed to a new computer architecture for use in a force feedback interface device that further distributes the computational burden associated with force feedback generation by providing a haptic accelerator chip. The accelerator chip performs support functionality so as to relieve the computational burden on the local microprocessor of the interface device and increase performance and fidelity of forces at a low cost.
More specifically, the force feedback interface device is used with a host computer which displays and updates an application program such as a graphical simulation on a display device in response to user manipulation of the interface device. The host computer commands force feedback sensations in response to the user manipulation and in coordination with events within the graphical simulation. The interface device includes a user manipulatable object graspable by the user, such as a mouse or a joystick, an actuator for outputting a force on the user manipulatable object, and a sensor for outputting a raw sensor signal indicative of a position of the user manipulatable object. A force feedback processor determines output force commands for commanding forces to be applied on the user object by the actuator. A haptic accelerator separate from the force feedback microprocessor receives the raw sensor signals and outputs processed signals derived from the raw sensor signals, where the processed signals are sent to and used, at least in part, by the force feedback processor for determining the forces. In the preferred embodiment, the raw sensor signals represent a position of the user object in a degree of freedom, and the processed signals represent a velocity and/or an acceleration of the user object. The haptic accelerator thus performs fast and efficient velocity and acceleration determination from raw position signals.
The haptic accelerator includes logic components for fast processing of the raw sensor data into the processed data. In one embodiment, the sensor is a digital optical encoder providing two raw sensor signals, and the haptic accelerator determines a position and direction of the user object from the two raw sensor signals. The haptic accelerator preferably includes a quadrature module for determining the position data using the two raw sensor signals and a motion processing module having a counter for counting a time interval between the raw signals to determine the velocity of the user object. The haptic accelerator may also include multiple latches for storing the time interval and a previous time interval such that the haptic accelerator can determine the acceleration of the user object. Furthermore, the haptic accelerator may include fault prevention logic for detecting errors and invalid signals from the sensor, and a filter for rejecting spurious raw sensor signals. The haptic accelerator can further include a multiplexer for multiplexing the position data with the velocity data. The haptic processing unit can additionally include a summing node for summing different condition force magnitudes determined substantially simultaneously by the haptic processing unit and for outputting the resultant condition force magnitude to the actuator.
An advanced embodiment of the haptic accelerator is also included in the present invention. The advanced haptic accelerator can include the components described above as well as a haptic processing unit for determining condition force magnitudes, such as for stiffness, damping, and inertia conditions, which are output from the haptic processing unit to the actuator. The condition forces are dependent on a position, velocity, or an acceleration of the user object. In this embodiment, the force feedback processor preferably determines time-varying effect forces, such as jolts and vibrations. The haptic accelerator can include a parameter storage register for storing parameters received from the force feedback processor that modify the condition forces determined by the haptic processing unit, such as a spring constant, a damping constant, and a simulated mass constant. In some embodiments, the force feedback processor outputs effect forces to the haptic processing unit, and the haptic processing unit sums the effect forces with the condition forces and outputs the summed forces to the actuator.
In the preferred embodiment, the force feedback processor is a device microprocessor separate from the host computer system and local to the force feedback interface device. The device microprocessor receives high-level host commands from the host computer, computes force magnitudes in response to the high-level commands, and outputs the force magnitudes to the actuator. Alternatively, the force feedback processor is a microprocessor included in the host computer system. A method of the present invention provides fast computation of forces for a force feedback interface device and can be implemented in a similar manner to the apparatus described above.
An analog embodiment of the force feedback device includes an analog position sensor for outputting an analog position signal, an analog circuit separate from the host computer which receives the raw analog position signals, computes an analog velocity of said user object from the position, and outputs processed signals derived from the position signals and which include representations of the computed velocity. A device microprocessor (or other force feedback processor) computes forces and receives the analog position signal and the processed signals from the analog circuit and uses the analog position and velocity, at least in part, to determine the forces to be output on the user object.
In another aspect of the present invention, smooth force sensations are provided to a user manipulatable object used in a force feedback interface device that is coupled to a host computer executing a program with which the user interacts. Sensor signals from the interface device are executing a program with which the user interacts. Sensor signals from the interface device are used, at least in part, in the determination of force values to be output to a brushless motor (e.g., DC motor) included in the interface device. Force signals are output, equivalent to the force values, to the brushless motor using sinusoidal commutation, where the force values are converted into forces applied to the user object by the brushless motor, which preferably operates at low speeds. The forces are coordinated with events displayed within the program. In some embodiments, a haptic accelerator on the force feedback device may include a controller for sinusoidal commutation of the brushless motor. This sinusoidal commutation provides the high-fidelity forces necessary in a force feedback interface device using a brushless motor.
The methods and apparatus of the present invention advantageously provide increased ability in a force feedback device to quickly and realistically output forces to a user manipulated object in coordination with an application program updated on a host computer. The haptic accelerator of the present invention is dedicated to simple but computationally burdensome tasks such as determining velocity and acceleration from position information of the user object, and can handle such tasks in parallel and more quickly than the force feedback processor. The advanced haptic accelerator performs additional tasks such as the determination of condition forces. This functionality allows these computationally burdensome tasks to be offloaded from the force feedback processor, allowing that processor to more quickly and efficiently determine other forces and to oversee other force feedback tasks. This also allows the force feedback processor and interface device to be implemented as a much more inexpensive device, which is critical in the home and video game mass market. Other features of the present invention allow realistic and effective forces to be provided with a low cost interface device.
These and other advantages of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon a reading of the following specification of the invention and a study of the several figures of the drawing.